Bayonetta creator Hideki Kamiya wants us to drop the "retro" game label
PlatinumGames co-founder, Bayonetta director and celebrated Twitter shoutyman Hideki Kamiya would like the "retro" game label to go out of fashion. His argument is that calling something "retro" is inherently condescending - each game has its own particular achievements and qualities that deserve to be understood in terms of more than just nostalgia cultivated by a novelty-driven industry. After all, Johnny 90s Developer didn't spend months knocking together a bespoke cover system or fancy artstyle so that you could badge it "quaint", "old school" and so on, 30 years later. Assuming you can still access the game at all.
"I don't like the word 'retro game'," Kamiya told VGC in a wide-ranging interview also notable for some chunky insights on onomatopoeia in Japanese manga and its US adaptations. "I'm obviously not a native English speaker so it might be something I'm interpreting from a Japanese perspective, but hearing the word 'retro' from a Japanese viewpoint, suggests more of a 'fad' brought back from a past era and reskinned for the current era."